Mandalay Bay Claims Vegas Shooting an ‘Act of Terrorism’ in Lawsuit Against Victims

The owners of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino have filed a federal lawsuit against the victims of the Las Vegas Shooting, arguing that they are not liable. However, their argument against liability is based on a 2002 federal law that limits liability for terrorist attacks.

On October 1, 2017, police and FBI say alleged shooter Stephen Paddock opened fire from his 32nd floor suite at the Mandalay Bay onto a crowd of thousands of concertgoers who were attending the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival.

Paddock, who has been deemed a “lone shooter” by disgraced Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo and Aaron Rouse, the Special Agent in Charge of Las Vegas FBI, killed 58 people and injured nearly 900 people.

Mandalay Bay is owned and operated by MGM Resorts. The owners of Mandalay Bay filed a lawsuit in federal courts in both Nevada and California on Monday, claiming they have no liability for the October 1 mass shooting.

According to Robert Eglet, a Las Vegas lawyer who is representing several of the Las Vegas shooting victims, Mandalay Bay’s lawsuit only serves as a way to take the lawsuits out of state court and place them into federal court instead. Eglet described MGM’s actions as a form of “judge shopping” and argues that they are highly “unethical”.

“I’ve never seen a more outrageous thing, where they sue the victims in an effort to find a judge they like,” Eglet said. “It’s just really sad that they would stoop to this level.”

An MGM spokeswoman said, “The Federal Court is an appropriate venue for these cases and provides those affected with the opportunity for a timely resolution. Years of drawn out litigation and hearings are not in the best interest of victims, the community and those still healing.”

Despite the fact that LVMPD, FBI, and Mandalay Bay have remained adamant in their claims that Paddock was a lone shooter who had no accomplices and that the mass shooting was not an act of terrorism, MGM’s lawsuit claims the Casino is not liable for Paddock’s actions, citing the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002, a federal law that was enacted after the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks, in which Muslim terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City. The federal law, which was passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the deadliest terror attack to ever take place on US soil, limits liability for terrorist attacks when anti-terrorism technologies have be deployed.

It has been nearly nine months since the Las Vegas shooting, and the FBI, Sheriff Lombardo, and Mandalay Bay have all said that Paddock was a lone gunman. They have also stated that the shooting was not an act of terrorism, and that they have not been able to determine an official motive.

“If defendants were injured by Paddock’s assault, as they allege, they were inevitably injured both because Paddock fired from his window and because they remained in the line of fire at the concert. Such claims inevitably implicate security at the concert — and may result in loss to CSC,” MGM argued in the lawsuit they filed.

While MGM claims to not be liable for the shooting, evidence that has come to light over the past 9 months suggest otherwise. In the days after the Las Vegas shooting, Las Vegas Casino mogul Steve Wynn slipped up during an interview with Fox News when he revealed that Paddock brought a stockpile of weapons up to his suite through the Service elevator at Mandalay Bay, which is not supposed to be used by anyone other than hotel employees, suggesting that the hotel did in fact aid Paddock in bringing the weapons used during the shooting up to his room.

When it was revealed that Paddock had used the service elevator to transport his arsenal, MGM Resorts vowed to improve security so that nobody could ever again access the service elevators at their resorts. However, only three months after the shooting, investigative journalist Laura Loomer filmed an undercover video inside Mandalay Bay service elevator as a non guest, in which she transported herself, a black duffel bag, and a hard black gun case with an older man into the hotel, through the lobby, and up and down the service elevator to the 32nd floor nearly four times in a row. The video proved that security had not been increased, and that the elevator which Paddock himself used had still not been secured. Following the release of Loomer’s video, MGM released a statement. “We are carefully reviewing the video in our constant efforts to evaluate and refine our security procedures,” a statement from MGM Resorts read.

MGM’s claim in which they deny liability is problematic for numerous reasons. The security company at the Route 91 concert that MGM has cast blame upon was hired by MGM Resorts. The concert itself also took place on MGM property. Not only is Mandalay Bay an MGM property, but the land on which the festival took place, known as the “Las Vegas Village”, is also owned by MGM.

It is also worth noting that the security guards that were hired for the festival by MGM were unarmed, as MGM Resorts and venues are gun free zones that have little to no armed security guards.

MGM claims the victims’ lawsuits implicate Contemporary Services Corp, the security company hired by MGM, because the claims involve concert security, training, emergency response, and evacuation. However, a quick overview of civilian and police body cam video filmed the night of the shooting reveals that concert goers themselves were barricaded inside the MGM venue, which suggests that MGM, not CSC, is liable since they are responsible as the owner of the venue and property for ensuring that attendees know how to evacuate in the event of an emergency.

The lawsuit, which drew enormous amounts of backlash against MGM and spurred a #BoycottMGM movement on social media on Monday, is directly targeting shooting survivors and family members of the 58 slain victims, many of whom have filed lawsuits against the Casino conglomerate.

“MGM has done something that in over 30 years of practice is the most outrageous thing I have ever seen,” Eglet said. “They have sued the families of victims while they’re still grieving over their loved ones.”

However, despite confirmation of the report that Congress was briefed on, the FBI and LVMPD have refused to further comment on the Las Vegas shooting, even going as far as instituting a ban on all LVMPD and FBI employees from speaking about the shooting and any information relating to the events of October 1, 2017.

The FBI and LVMPD did not return Big League’s request for comment regarding whether or not they have changed their mind regarding their claims that the Las Vegas shooting was not an act of Islamic terrorism.